Stragglin’ with the Stragglers

So I’m in this new band, The Stragglers. For She’s Not There and I’m Looking Through You readers, this is not the band I called “Blue Stranger” in those books; that band entered voluntary retirement in 2006. I’ve been in about half a dozen bands since then, and been thrown out of every one. I am always told “it’s not me,” but I don’t know. How could it not be?

I finally have fallen in with a group of musicians so marginal that there is literally nowhere further to fall. We have a ball together, the five of us. We’ve played out a handful of times, and will probably continue to do so in the years to come. It’s a jam band, which means that, on the one hand, we only have like five songs, but on the other, since each one is an hour and a half long, we don’t really need more than five songs. Plus, we never remember how they go, so each time is different.

The instrumentation is pretty wild too– it’s a classic rock and roll rhythm section of drums, bass, and guitar, with two wild cards– me on keyboards, and Luke on the electric fiddle. Dave LaGrange– who was part of the “Blue Stranger” circle– plays rhythm and sings and when he feels like it, which is a lot of the time, he whips out a lead as well.

In truth, the band is pretty freakin’ great–a few originals, but mostly things like Neil Young, Grateful Dead, the Band, a few bar classics. Lots of improvisation. A good time. I love playing with these guys– a nice slot for a keyboard player to fill. I get to fill in the holes as I feel them, and then step up and do big piano or organ solos now and again too.

Anyway, I asked my friends on Facebook if anybody wanted to make a logo for the band, and just like that, four or more logos were drawn up by people I hardly even know, for free. Amazing thing, the internet. I said I thought the band emblem should be, “a three toed sloth hanging from a tree,” epitomizing our driving sense of ambition. So here, for your consideration, are some of those logos. What do you think?

“On stage the band has got problems; they’re a bag of nerves on first nights.” –Rolling Stones, “Torn and Frayed.”

P.S. and if YOU are a design nerd, or are just the kind of person who wants to hang around the house messing with images of three-toed sloths, draw up one of these your own self and send it to me. Thanks. And STRAGGLE ON!

3 Comments

I’m partial to the logo with green lettering. I think it looks better because it has a definite sloth depiction and the name is clearly visible. Although I’m not an artist, I do make suggestions well. For this project, my suggestion would be to make the two ‘g’s in “Straggler” into quarter or eighth notes. Good luck with the band!

Jenny Boylan's most recent book is the novella, I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT, available from She-Books. JFB also wrote the introduction for the new TRANS BODIES/TRANS SELVES, published by Oxford University Press in May. The paperback edition of STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU. along with the updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition of SHE'S NOT THERE (Random House) arrived in April of 2014.

PROFESSOR JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN, author of thirteen books, is the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. She also serves as the national co-chair of the Board of Directors of GLAAD, the media advocacy group for LGBT people worldwide.

She has been a contributor to the op/ed page of the New York Times since 2007; in 2013 she became Contributing Opinion Writer for the page. Jenny also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.

Her 2003 memoir, She's Not There: a Life in Two Genders (Broadway/Doubleday/Random House) was the first bestselling work by a transgender American. A novelist, memoirist, and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for civil rights. Jenny has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show on four occasions; Live with Larry King twice; the Today Show, the Barbara Walters Special, NPR's Marketplace and Talk of the Nation; she has also been the subject of documentaries on CBS News' 48 Hours and The History Channel.

She lives in New York City, and in Belgrade Lakes, Maine, with her wife, Deedie, and her two sons, Zach and Sean.
Check out the Twitter feed at JennyBoylan; or follow Jennifer Finney Boylan on facebook.

The Boylan Family, summer 2010

Will Forte as Jennifer Finney Boylan on “Saturday Night Live”

Jenny with Barbara Walters, December, 2008

Jenny atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin

August, 2002.

Surrounded

With President Clinton and Maine's Governor John Baldacci, fall 2006.

JFB and Edward Albee

Edward had been my teacher at Johns Hopkins in the winter of 1986. He visited Colby in fall, 2007. As we took our leave of each other, he kissed me on both cheeks and said, "We have done well. You and I."

Jenny and her teacher, the great John Barth

Jack was my professor at JHU when I did my thesis, back in the day. After many years, I can now confidently say I finally understand his definition of plot. Which is, of course, "the perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a new and complexified equilibrium."